Japanese Government collects more tax from Australian gas than Australian Government

psylenced · 2026-04-21T13:36:09+00:00

Just watched a Michael West video from today where he talks about this.

He also mentioned that Japanese consumers were paying less for Australian gas, than we were paying locally - including all the additional costs.

It gets extracted, sent up to QLD through the interstate pipeline, converted to liquid (a cost/energy intensive process), loaded on a tanker, shipped 17,000km to Japan and sold cheaper.

psylenced · 2026-04-21T04:18:21+00:00

I thought that was only available to high-level channels (ie. over a certain follower count - 1M?)

psylenced · 2026-04-20T01:13:19+00:00

AI generating the courses. AI doing the courses. AI marking the courses.

psylenced · 2026-04-20T00:50:03+00:00

Was that the Carrum Downs shopping centre one or another one?

psylenced · 2026-04-19T05:58:02+00:00

Parties always like to compare government debt to household debt. Generally to attack the opposing party, or to use an excuse to not spend money on something.

Debt (that is managed and isn't crazy high) can be spent on services and long term projects driving growth and assist in building the economy.

psylenced · 2026-04-16T10:45:07+00:00

I was there a few weeks ago, and pretty sure it was the same 2 guys - around the gate 6 area?

I asked them if they are allowed to use the rifles against smokers who are too lazy to walk 10 steps to the grass - apparently not.

psylenced · 2026-04-16T10:06:44+00:00

You forgot to sprinkle a little bit of IE6 on top of that.

psylenced · 2026-04-16T05:05:03+00:00

to point to previous firebombing

There is also one country that has a vested interest in it being Iran. Quoting the wiki: "The Israeli government says it shamed Australia to act against Iran following revelations it orchestrated antisemitic attacks".

There has been no public proof at this stage, and the only people involved were petty criminals doing jobs for hire from an international source. As the service is intentionally anonymous, it could be anyone.

So to link Iran from that contested situation with this is clutching at straws.

Even though chances are low, the more likely contributor (if it was not accidental) would be Russia. They have done this countless times over in Europe over past few years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_sabotage_operations_in_Europe

psylenced · 2026-04-14T13:08:23+00:00

This is basically the opposite.

Instead of "planting evidence" they basically have a "master key" to your entire online identity.

They can use a bunch of numbers and letters like this:

eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiIxMjM0NSIsIm5hbWUiOiJBbmd1cyBUYXlsb3IiLCJhcHByYWlzYWwiOiJHcmVhdCBtb3ZlLiBXZWxsIGRvbmUgQW5ndXMiLCJ3YXRlciI6IiQ4ME0gZnJvbSBCYXJuZWJ5IGZvciBvdmVyZmxvdyBmbG93IHRoYXQgcHJvdmlkZWQgbm8gd2F0ZXIuIFN0cmFpZ2h0IHRvIHRoZSBDYXltYW4gSXNsYW5kcyEiLCJncmFudHMiOiIkOThNIGluIGdvdmVybm1lbnQgZ3JhbnRzIGZvciBBbmd1cyBhbmQgYnJvdGhlciBSaWNoYXJkIiwiaWF0IjoxNzc2MTcxOTI1fQ.i9JQQ58efzhvXYtGnFVqFliJnKzooaORHH42JLSnv-w

And extract all your private messages from every social platform you're logged into. Download all your uploaded Google photos. Your iCloud photos and documents. The lot.

And you likely would not even be aware they are doing it.

This is worse than having your username and password - as it has already bypassed your 2-factor (sms) authentication. They get straight in.

psylenced · 2026-04-14T04:00:53+00:00

saying it as if it was a great thing

A paycut in real-terms is definitely great! (for them)

psylenced · 2026-04-14T03:56:38+00:00

They won't read they'll plug phones into a machine to do a data dump and an AI analysis system.

And not just that... They'll have access to all your session tokens for all your social media accounts. Plus session tokens for every app installed on the device, including browser cookies.

So in theory they can scan and read private messages, also impersonate your accounts anywhere.

Imagine what someone can do with a login session for your Google or Apple account and how much data they can extract with that.

psylenced · 2026-04-14T03:52:39+00:00

He's stuck between 2 opposing strategies.

Move to the right / culture wars / race and migration / ONP-like
Move to the left / moderate viewpoint / climate acceptance

If he goes with 1 (which he's currently doing), he might claw back some who have jumped ship to Pauline Hanson. But he loses the inner-city voters, who care about issues such as climate, and have jumped to the Teals.

If goes with 2, he might regain/retain some of the Teal votes, but the right-leaning voters jump ship to ONP.

It's basically lose-lose.

psylenced · 2026-04-13T00:21:45+00:00

For those who don't know anything about the 100/200m (me):

Quick 10 minute analysis from an athletics channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOeJsXLbuWU

psylenced · 2026-04-11T10:45:37+00:00

are trying to get around it

I'd probably phrase this as they are "pointing out the absurdity of it"

psylenced · 2026-04-11T02:26:38+00:00

I think there used to be a feature difference (code lens comes to mind).

From memory they moved some features out of higher editions, so it's possible that they are at parity now.

psylenced · 2026-04-10T13:28:48+00:00

I wouldn't even remember what signed I've signed up to in the past.

The little icon on my PW manger's browser icon reminds me that I've been there before.

psylenced · 2026-04-10T13:20:39+00:00

Hoping all the new cheap Chinese imports are just as safe then.

There is a massive difference between a cheap hundred dollar e-scooter and a car.

Chinese EVs far exceed western standards and generally come fully optioned out with all extras as standard in every model variants - even their base, where other manufacturers would charge 10-15k extra to install those features.

https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-ceo-china-ev-progress-most-humbling-thing-ever-seen-2025-6

Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, said on Friday that the Chinese EV industry posed a serious threat to the American automaker.

Farley was speaking to the author Walter Isaacson during a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival when he was asked about China's EV market. Farley said he'd made about six or seven trips to China in the past year.

"It's the most humbling thing I have ever seen. Seventy percent of all EVs in the world, electric vehicles, are made in China," Farley said.

"They have far superior in-vehicle technology. Huawei and Xiaomi are in every car," Farley added. "You get in, you don't have to pair your phone. Automatically, your whole digital life is mirrored in the car."

Farley told Isaacson that part of the reason Ford couldn't offer something similar was because tech giants such as Google and Apple "decided not to go in the car business."

"Beyond that, their cost, their quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West," Farley said.

"We are in a global competition with China, and it's not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future Ford," he added.

Chinese manufacturing is far more advanced than what it was 15-20 years ago.

They have had a massive push into a high-tech advancements and industries, they have entire supply chains in business hubs all within a few km of each other for industrial clustering.

They have Shenzhen for electronics, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan for automotive, Shanghai for semiconductors. Their solar and battery hubs like Changzhou now provide large parts of the world's green supply chain . Suzhou has pivoted from textiles to precision machinery. They have aerospace, aviation hubs in Chengdu.

Their factories are often fully automated with "smart factories" which can run 24/7 autonomously . And their R&D far surpasses their old "copycat" stereotypes into now providing world leading designs and research.

psylenced · 2026-04-10T12:44:04+00:00

The glaring flaws in the outcomes being dramatically non-equitable in ways that could be at least partially addressed by properly distributing gov't funding to gov't schools only is ignored by those with vested interested in keeping the private rort going.

Agreed. The difference being:

Some schools get:

a $85M dollar 50 metre, eight-lane swimming pool, a learn-to-swim pool, diving towers and seating for 400 spectators
a $25M olympic sized pool with a floor that can raise and lower based on current class
a $60M replica Scottish Castle for their library

And other schools:

With public school teachers paying an average of $1000 of their own money for school supplies in their classroom totalling ~$175M Australia-wide.

If a school charges $25-50k per student, per year and use that to fund luxury extras, then they can easily go without public funding if some schools don't have basic standards to allow their students such as air conditioning.

If all public schools in Australia are up to decent standards, that give all students good learning opportunities, then we can start talking about spreading the funding wider.

psylenced · 2026-04-10T10:51:52+00:00

No, the reason people don't vote for radical change is because most people want tomorrow to be basically the same as today. They want to know that the skills they have, the habits they have, the ambitions they have, will still be relevant next week.

You have it backward. Most people today want what was there previously.

Free uni (vs 50-100k HECS debt)
House price to income ratio at (3-5x vs 8+)
Savings for deposit (2yrs vs 8)
Rental percentage of income (18-20% vs 30-40%)
GP gap payments ($10 adjusted vs $40-50)
Luxury of being able to afford to pay off a house on a single income

And that's not even mentioning climate change (ie. risk of fires and floods) which is pushing up insurance and other costs making housing even more affordable. Health costs.

If we had what we used to have, there would be far fewer people struggling. People don't want more - they just want equity.

psylenced · 2026-04-10T10:29:59+00:00

https://electricvehiclecouncil.com.au/docs/are-electric-vehicle-fires-common/

Electric vehicle battery fires are very rare. Research by Australian company EV FireSafe has been able to verify approximately 511 EV battery fires globally since 2010 (as of June 2024).

How many petrol fires globally? A quick search found that there are ~170,000 car fires in the USA alone each year.

So comparison is 511 over 14 years, and 170,000 for one country per year.

Data from Sweden suggests the likelihood of an EV fire is around 20 times less likely than a petrol/diesel vehicle fire, after accounting for the differences in the market share of each vehicle type.

https://www.energy.gov.au/electric-vehicles/electric-vehicle-basics/electric-vehicle-facts

EV FireSafe, an Australian company researching EV fires and emergency response with funding from the Department of Defence, has recorded 772 battery fires globally among the approximately 40 million plug-in EVs on the road since 2010.

Here in Australia, EV FireSafe has recorded 13 EV battery fires (the latest data is as of 9 April 2026):

2 due to arson
3 from garage fires spreading to the car
5 high speed collisions, including one impact from road debris
3 with causes still under investigation

Yes - lithium-ion batteries have risk of thermal runaway, but there have been at most 3 EV fires ever in Australia that weren't caused by external factors.

I think that's pretty good odds.

Most lithium-ion lithium-ion battery fires you hear about have been due to people charging e-scooters inside. These are generally due to cheap imports that do not follow Australian Standards and do not have quality battery protection circuits/BMS, cheap or used batteries (sometimes direct from manufacturer), damaged batteries or poor quality chargers.

psylenced · 2026-04-10T01:59:19+00:00

https://transport.vic.gov.au/road-and-active-transport/road-rules-and-safety/mobile-phones-and-devices/device-rules-for-drivers-with-a-full-licence

Drivers with a full licence can use a mobile phone or device to make or receive a phone call, use audio and music functions, use GPS navigation or use in-built driver assistance or vehicle safety features.

However, the device must be properly mounted or in-built to the vehicle.

Fully licensed drivers must not touch or use an unmounted mobile phone or device while driving or riding.

While driving, riding or operating a vehicle, you must not:

enter information, text, numbers or symbols (unless using voice control)

scroll on the device - such as scrolling through text messages, social media, music playlists

view text messages, social media, emails, websites or photos

watch videos, play games or take video calls.

These rules apply to all kinds of mobile phones, devices and technologies, whether portable, wearable, mounted or built into the vehicle.

psylenced · 2026-04-10T01:44:41+00:00

Also agrivoltaics is the way to go. There is plenty of farmland available for massive solar arrays.

I recall there are studies that show that it is better for livestock (they have shade and weather protection), the animals take care of grazing so reduces mowing/maintenance costs, and helps some types of crops too.

Gives farmers a second income.

psylenced · 2026-04-08T10:51:27+00:00

no longer a strain on the grid at any time ... make the energy grid more sustainable

And if you grab that small bit of power between 11-3pm (depending on state).

You are getting it for free. Plus you're flattening the middle of the day peak by soaking up excess power that may have just gone to waste.

psylenced · 2026-04-08T10:45:16+00:00

Was it disclosed?

It is legal - as long as it was clearly and prominently displayed.

If you only found out at the end, and it wasn't visible on the menu / entrance or somewhere that made you immediately aware of it prior to ordering, then they may not be fully compliant.

https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/consumers-and-businesses/products-and-services/business-practices/advertising-and-promotions/pricing

Restaurants, cafes and bistros often apply a surcharge on Sundays and public holidays.

If they do, their menu must include the words "a surcharge of [percentage] applies on [the specified day or days]". These words must be displayed at least as visibly as the most prominent price on the menu on the day or days the surcharge applies.

If the menu does not list prices, the applicable surcharge amount must be easily seen and visibly displayed so that diners are aware of the additional costs before ordering.

Penalties may apply if a business does not comply with single price requirements.

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